[Advaita-l] Brahma Sutra-supreme brahman

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Mon, 5 Apr 2004, S Jayanarayanan wrote:

> Are you saying that saguNa Brahman is essentially BrahmA =
> hiraNyagarbha?

In general no, but in this sutra yes.  It is discussing the passages in
chhandogyopanishad which state the released souls go to the world of
Prajapati and then proceed to the final moksha at pralaya.  The puranic
motif of Brahma and Padmanabha Vishnu Bhagavan would make a good
illustration of that concept.

> I believe there are as many (if not more) prayers in the Vedas to
> prajApati-alias-HiraNyagarbha as there are to VishhNu, so there can be
> no question of one worship being "more Vedic" than the other.
>

The particular deities in question may be equally Vedic but not
necessarily their followers!

> OTOH, here are some speculations:
>
> Since HiraNyagarbha-worship is only in the Karma-KANDa portion of the
> Vedas, it MAY be that ONLY Vedic ritualistic worship of
> HiraNyagarbha(=saguNa Brahman) leads to krama-mukti. Is this why
> smArtas do not worship BrahmA in the temples -- because
> HiraNyagarbha-worship should not be non-Vedic (since temple worship is
> not purely Vedic)?
>

We have discussed this on the list before.  Unfortunately it is still a
dark mystery as to why Brahma never became as popular as Visnu or Mahesh.
I don't think Shankaracharya believed only Vedic yajnas were a path to
krama-mukti.  In fact in the adhikarana against the vyuhavada, he mentions
temple worship as being one of the customs of the Bhagavatas and states
that such things are not to be condemned only their philosophical views.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
It's a girl! See the pictures - http://www.braincells.com/shailaja/